Los Angeles Chef Recipes

"Putting potato chips inside sandwiches has always been a favorite trick of ours," says chef Jon Shook. He and co-chef Vinny Dotolo serve chips on Tabasco-spiked lobster salad tucked into buttery toasted buns.

This waffle recipe by XIV chef Michael Mina is as close to the one of his childhood as he could get it. Cornmeal makes the waffles crispy; ricotta keeps them moist.

When Kogi’s truck first Tweeted its stops last November, no one had heard of Korean short rib tacos. Now hundreds of people line up for them, and for kimchi hot dogs. Credit Roy Choi, who cooked at NYC’s Le Bernardin and recently opened a Kogi counter at L.A.’s Alibi Room.

At his L.A. spot, Josef Centeno has done what few chefs do: developed a new kind of sandwich bread. Called the bäco, it’s a very supple flatbread. But his creative fillings, like the fried shrimp here with cardamom-chile sauce and herbed crema, are sensational on any kind of flatbread, or even rolled inside flour tortillas.

Suzanne Goin (an F&W Best New Chef 1999) is beloved in Los Angeles for Lucques. She accents leg of lamb with a flavorful mustard crust.

David Myers puts brown butter to ingenious use in this showcase for California’s succulent Blue Foot chicken. First he drizzles the supermoist bird with brown butter, then sautés root vegetables in the remaining brown butter until they are glazed.

Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo—the guys behind the Food Network show Two Dudes Catering—have a philosophy that guides them, whether they're cooking for the X Games or for their new Los Angeles restaurant, Animal: Use a big cut of meat, preferably pork, and serve it with a killer sauce.

Yuzu kosho is a hot, spicy and aromatic Japanese condiment made from hot chiles and ultra-citrusy yuzu zest. It’s the key to this supersimple and utterly delicious recipe from chef Ricardo Zarate of Mo-Chica in Los Angeles.

This carnivore's salad is filled with bold ingredients like bacon and pickled onion, but the star ingredient is chicken livers. Shook and Dotolo soak the livers in buttermilk and coat them in flour, then repeat the process for extra-crispy results. "I'm into livers of all kinds now," says Dotolo, "especially duck and lamb."

David Myers's simple soup, with its intensely earthy artichoke flavor, makes the most of exemplary Big Heart artichokes. It's also a great way to use leftover Parmesan rind: Myers tosses it into the soup while it simmers, then discards it before pureeing.

Suzanne Goin covers this veal roast with herbs and butter before cooking to get extra-rich pan juices. They are delicious spooned over the exceptionally tender meat and served with the sweet roasted garlic cloves.

This hearty, briny cioppino—the San Francisco seafood stew that owes its origins to fishermen from Italy's Ligurian coast—is full of crab, shrimp and clams.

Suzanne Goin grew up on the healthy flavors of California cooking and embraces that style in her cooking.

The French macaron is a simple cookie made with almonds, sugar and egg whites. The recipe here includes green tea powder (matcha), which gives it a delightful flavor.